Information updates for Bonded Medical Program participants

Changes to Part VD of the Health Insurance Act 1973

Removal of the 6-year Medicare ban

If you are a former Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship (MRBS) scheme participant, you will no longer face the 6-year Medicare ban if you withdraw from the Program or do not complete your RoSO within 18 years of graduating from your medical school course. However, you will still need to repay the cost of your scholarship.

Implemented

We have changed our processes so that the Medicare ban no longer applies to former MRBS participants who withdraw or breach their agreement. We are updating our website and BRoSS notifications to reflect this change, but you may still see references to the Medicare ban for now.

If you’re thinking about withdrawing, you can check your estimated repayment in BRoSS. Go to ‘Manage my agreement’ on your dashboard, select ‘Withdraw from the Program’ and download the MRBS repayment estimate PDF. BRoSS works out the amount based on your RoSO activity up to your withdrawal date. If you ask for a new estimate, the system will forward it to us for actioning automatically.

Removal of financial penalty for students who withdraw

If you withdraw from your medical course at an Australian university, you will not have to repay your  Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP) debt. You still need to log into BRoSS and action your withdrawal so the system notifies us.

Partially implemented

We have updated our processes and will not invoice students who do not complete their medical course. BRoSS has not been updated yet, so it may still show an amount to pay if you withdraw after your second-year census date. If you submit a withdrawal, we will update your record to show a zero balance and email you to confirm.

Changes to the Bonded Medical Program Rule

Work completed as a Bonded Medical Places Scheme or MRBS Scheme participant

If you previously took part in the Bonded Medical Program (BMP) Scheme or MRBS Scheme and completed Program compliant work, you can now submit evidence to have this work count towards your RoSO.

In progress – submit your evidence

Any work you completed before entering the Program has to be added to BRoSS by our team. You can send us your evidence now, but because we receive a high volume of emails, it may take several months before your BRoSS record is updated.

We recommend you include a summary of your work history from internship onwards, so we can make sure all eligible work is recorded. If you have already completed 156 weeks of work in eligible locations, clearly point this out in your email, as we are prioritising these cases.

We can only assess your RoSO once you have provided all required evidence. If your evidence does not meet the requirements, we will ask you to submit your documentation again.

BMP Scheme 2016–2019 participants

If you are a participant in the BMP Scheme with a 52-week obligation, you can now complete your RoSO pro-rata, either part-time or by the day. You no longer have to do it in full-time blocks of at least 10 weeks. You must now complete a total of 1820-hours of RoSO, and only the first 35 hours worked per week count toward that total.

Implementation pending

Adding this functionality to BRoSS will take significant development work. For now, if you have completed 52 weeks on a part-time or pro-rata basis, please send us your evidence so we can assess whether you have met the Program requirements.

We can only assess your RoSO once you have provided all required evidence. If your evidence does not meet the requirements, we will ask you to submit your documentation again.

Removing time limits for RoSO reporting

The changes mean that your work will count toward your RoSO even if BRoSS is not updated within 6 months of commencement or 3 months of completion.

Implementation in BRoSS expected by April 2026

You will see an error message in BRoSS if you try to enter RoSO with a start or end date that is more than 6 months ago. We are working to remove these limits on RoSO plans and will release this update in April 2026. Once it is available, you will be able to enter and manage RoSO for any work commenced or completed since you became a Program participant.

Removal of the Fellowship requirement

Previously, you had to complete at least half of your RoSO after you became a Fellow or 12 years after finishing your medical course – whichever came first. We have removed this requirement. You can now complete all your RoSO as soon as you become a medical practitioner.

Implementation in BRoSS expected by July 2026

BRoSS will let you enter RoSO plans even if you completed more than 78 weeks of RoSO before you became a Fellow, but that work will not show as counting towards your RoSO in the progress bar. The fellowship or 12-year requirement will be removed from BRoSS by July 2026.

Once this update is in place, BRoSS will automatically recalculate your RoSO, and all work you completed before becoming a Fellow will count towards the 156-week RoSO.

Telehealth

Reporting telehealth is now easier. You only need to provide evidence that you provided services from an eligible location.

Implemented

This change is already in place. We have updated how we review completion evidence, and no changes to BRoSS were needed.

Changes to RoSO plan reporting

RoSO plans are now simpler, and we have updated the evidence requirements.

• If you finished your medical course less than 10 years ago, you have more flexibility in how you report your RoSO plans.
• If you finished your medical course more than 10 years ago, you need to show how you will meet your RoSO within the time allowed.

Implementation pending

We have started work on scoping requirements, but these updates are not expected until late 2026. For now, please refer to section 16 of the Health Insurance (Bonded Medical Program) Rule 2020 for current RoSO reporting requirements.

Notifiable events

You now need to provide evidence for fewer career milestones – we have reduced the number from 10 to 6. We have also updated evidence requirements for Notifiable Events.

Implementation pending

We have started work on scoping requirements, but these updates are not expected until late 2026. Until then, please ignore notifications for Notifiable Events that are no longer required. Please refer to section 15 of the Health Insurance (Bonded Medical Program) Rule 2020 for current Notifiable Event reporting requirements.

BRoSS enhancements

We started the BRoSS Enhancement Project on 1 July 2025 to improve system performance and make sure the system meets legislative requirements. In October 2025 we released several improvements, including:

• updated notifications that removed outdated penalty warnings and present key information more clearly.
• performance improvements to make BRoSS faster and more reliable.

During planned BRoSS outages, you may have limited access or experience temporary disruptions. We'll keep you informed about updates, and information about outages or scheduled maintenance will appear on our main Program web page.

Functionality release schedule

BRoSS user acceptance testing

A BRoSS release is an update to the system that:

• adds new features
• makes improvements
• changes how existing features work.

These updates mean we can better support users and improve performance.

User acceptance testing (UAT) is the final testing step before an update goes live, where real BRoSS users check that everything works properly and meets requirements.

We would like to include Program participants in UAT for future BRoSS releases. If you’re a Program participant and would like to take part, we’d love to hear from you.

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